Smoke was rising from the cigar on the table, and beside it were several unopened cans of juice, a bottle of liquor that looked like cognac, and two glasses. So these guys hadn’t been working at all; they’d just been having themselves a good time.
Sin Haeryang took a freediving rope from the corner and first bound up the middle-aged man whose nose had been smashed, then laid him on the floor. The young man who had been retching was next. Watching the man bend over and vomit in the corner of the pool, I asked how hard he’d hit him, but contrary to my expectations, Sin Haeryang said all he’d done was kick him once.
The young man, perhaps dizzy, held his head for a moment, then got up and threw a clumsy kick at Sin Haeryang. As if he didn’t even think it worth firing his gun, Sin Haeryang caught the incoming leg with one arm and dragged him off to the side.
Since the leg he’d kicked with had been caught, the man had to support himself only on the one leg he’d been using as his pivot. Going “Uh, uh, uh?” he was helplessly dragged this way and that in Sin Haeryang’s grip. When Sin Haeryang kicked out the man’s remaining leg as well, he collapsed straight onto the floor. ……He was completely toying with him. It seemed his condition had improved a great deal.
While I briefly helped Sin Haeryang bind the two men’s arms and legs, Kim Jaehee, who had been strolling over at a leisurely pace while merely watching, approached the table. Then he stared at the smoking cigar and picked it up. After turning the cigar this way and that to examine it, Kim Jaehee sat down in the chair beside Rico and began taking deep pulls from it. It happened so quickly I couldn’t even stop him, and before Kim Jaehee had swallowed even three mouthfuls, he started coughing.
“Kehk. Kehk! Kehk! Kehk! Kehk! Cough! Kehk!”
When Kim Jaehee, holding the lit cigar, reflexively tried to press it out in the porcelain dish on the table, the middle-aged man shouted.
“You can’t put it out like that!”
The instant Kim Jaehee’s hand stopped in midair, the middle-aged man quickly yelled.
“Just set the cigar down on top of that dish! Then it’ll go out on its own! Do you know how much that costs?”
Perhaps because he’d been hit in the face, the man who had offered no resistance while being tied up now screamed in horror over a single cigar. Kim Jaehee tossed the cigar he was holding onto the dish and kept coughing. Why did he even smoke that? When the lit cigar was left alone, it seemed the flame went out by itself, and no more smoke rose from it. The dish was full of ash.
Sin Haeryang searched the two men’s pockets and bodies, taking out everything they had and throwing it all onto the floor. Chewing tobacco, lighters, cigar cutters, coins, and crumpled bills came out; it seemed that when they couldn’t smoke cigars, they tucked chewing tobacco against their lips instead.
After removing everything that might allow them to undo the rope, Sin Haeryang dragged the two men over and forced them to sit at the edge of the pool. What is this? Untie us right now. Why are you doing this to us? To the men saying such things, Sin Haeryang shut them up with a single sentence.
“If you don’t stay quiet, I’ll throw you into the water.”
Perhaps realizing from Sin Haeryang’s attitude that it wasn’t a bluff, the two bound men fell silent at once.
Only then was I able to look around the place called Apep Diving. The interior was enormous. It looked like an indoor swimming pool, but unlike the other areas of the First Undersea Base, which had extremely high ceilings, the ceiling here was ordinary. Instead, there were stairs, an elevator, and a slide; it seemed they had been made so people could move between the first-floor indoor pool and the second-floor diving area.
The thing that most overwhelmingly seized the eye in Apep Diving was the huge transparent slide. The slide was so long that I couldn’t properly see where it began. On top of that, perhaps because people could be released midway if they wanted while riding it, several human-sized holes had been opened along its long body. It looked like a gigantic snake twisting its uncontrollable body this way and that, and part of its body seemed to pierce through the ceiling.
It coiled around the indoor pool so broadly and at such length, and it was so long and thick that its head could not be seen even beyond the ceiling. It made me think that a colossal white roller coaster had been installed inside the undersea base. Just as in the farm, where the transparent ceiling allowed even the seawater and sunlight to be seen, the ceiling of this diving area showed the sea as well, together with the slide that looked as if it were ascending above it.
When I approached Kim Jaehee, who was still coughing repeatedly, Rico, beside him, picked up a canned drink and handed it to Kim Jaehee in a completely hoarse voice.
“……People who smoke cigars order sweet things. I heard that’s what happens if you smoke too fast.”
At Rico’s words, Kim Jaehee forced down several gulps of canned apple juice. He grimaced as if he were feeling nauseated like the bound young man, but he only drank the juice without saying a word. He must have drawn the cigar smoke deep into his lungs.
While Sin Haeryang scanned the entire diving area, he told us to stay where we were, then jerked his chin at the bound cultists and warned Kim Jaehee.
“If they act suspicious, kick them into the pool.”
“What counts as acting suspicious?”
Sin Haeryang looked at me, then at Kim Jaehee, then indicated me to Kim Jaehee with his chin and said,
“Ask for permission, then kick them.”
“Yes. I’m good at that sort of thing.”
“I’ll be back within three minutes, so please remain here quietly.”
Leaving me, Rico, Kim Jaehee, and the two bound men behind, Sin Haeryang moved toward the shower room with his gun in hand. Perhaps the first floor was where ordinary swimming-related items were kept, and the second floor was where diving equipment was stored; warnings not to leave items on the walls opposite, as well as the safety rules for each floor, were written there. When Sin Haeryang disappeared inside to check the shower room, the middle-aged man spoke to us.
“Red hair! You look like you know a thing or two, but that cigar he just smoked was incredibly expensive. Three hundred dollars apiece! It’s a discontinued fiftieth-anniversary limited edition I’d been carefully saving to smoke on a special day like this.”
Then, when Sin Haeryang came out of the shower room, the middle-aged man shut his mouth, only to start chattering again when Sin Haeryang entered the storage room to check it.
“It might not look that way, but the two of us were working hard until ten minutes ago! Hard! We were keeping watch diligently too, and we were only taking a short break. If you work hard for half a day! Then you’ve got to rest hard too! I won’t say anything else, so don’t touch my cigars over there. No. If you light one and put it between my lips, I’ll give you one without that nasty-tempered bastard knowing.”
From what this man was saying, he seemed to think that we, fellow members of the Infinite Church, had come out for a surprise inspection and that he’d been beaten for slacking off. Come to think of it, both Kim Jaehee and I, and Sin Haeryang as well, looked at a glance like we were dressed as members of the Infinite Church. Among the three of us, Sin Haeryang must have looked the most like a cultist overflowing with faith.
When the young man beside him heard what the middle-aged man was saying, he spoke in alarm.
“Mister. Are you crazy? Will you shut up? Are you saying I should fall into the water too? No, you charged me for one! ……This old man suddenly suggested we smoke cigars while we were standing guard! I’m a diligent guy, and I only ever used chewing tobacco!”
When the young man beside him shouted while looking at him, the middle-aged man answered shamelessly.
“Now, now. Why be like that? We’re fellow believers. The one I sold you was a pretty good one too. Right now, if I could have a glass of cognac and smoke a cigar, I wouldn’t care at all if a bomb dropped beside me or whatever else happened. I won’t say anything about you barging in all of a sudden, smashing my nose, and tying me up either. Nor will I ask why three men carried a cafe employee in here on their backs. In fact! I’ll pay it no mind! ……So, how was it when you tried it? The cigar’s aroma isn’t bad, is it?”
When Sin Haeryang came out of the storage room again, the chattering middle-aged man quickly fell silent. Sin Haeryang glanced once in our direction, then disappeared soundlessly as he moved from the first floor to the second via the stairs. Then Kim Jaehee showed interest in the bottle on the table and asked,
“What’s this liquor?”
Kim Jaehee poured the flame-colored liquor from the bottle, which had enough weight and thickness to be used as a weapon, into a glass.
“As expected, you’ve got a good eye! That cognac! Is my secret collection, prepared for this very day! Louis XIII. Have you heard of it? The king of liquors and the liquor of kings!”
I was reading through the diving safety rules posted on the wall one by one when, between [Do not touch underwater life without permission] and [Wear your weight belt on the outermost layer], I saw [Never dive after drinking alcohol] written in bright red. I snatched the glass from Kim Jaehee’s hand.
Kim Jaehee looked at me, his glass taken away without much resistance. It was only after a few seconds that I realized he had handed it over because he thought I was going to drink it. ……Did Kim Jaehee have no intention of going out diving at all?
In the brief moment I let my guard down, that dark ruby-colored liquor passed to Rico. More precisely, Rico was holding my hand and downing the glass. I came to my senses at the gulp, gulp, gulp sounds and barely succeeded in pulling the glass away before he swallowed four mouthfuls. The bound middle-aged man was watching this scene with his mouth agape before he shouted.
“That’s not how you drink that liquor! You smell the aroma first! Then hold a sip in your mouth!”
“Shut up.”
Rico looked at the two of them and said,
“Why are things like you alive when Jean had to die? Why did he have to die? Why?”
Rico calmly picked up the cigar from the porcelain dish with one hand and threw it into the pool. Seeing that, the middle-aged man gasped.
“Ahh! My Robusto!”
Then Rico sprang to his feet and kicked the middle-aged man in the chest. Since the pool was behind him, the man toppled straight backward. The young man, who had been cackling at the sight of the middle-aged man splashing in the water, also fell backward three seconds later and entered the pool. It seemed Sin Haeryang had tied the two men together with the rope. Puh-hek! Pue-hek! Save me! U-bububu-bububut! Save—! Ububububut! Sa—! U-bubut!
Rico stood in front of the pool and watched the two men in the water without blinking once. Since they had fallen in with their arms and legs bound behind them, they couldn’t swim, and even when they floated, their faces didn’t properly rise above the surface.
I quickly threw off my hat and mask, then kicked off my shoes and socks.
“Let them die.”
When I tried to jump into the pool, Kim Jaehee grabbed me from behind and stopped me.
“Those guys aren’t the ones who killed Jean! You said to put them in the water after getting your permission!”
Since there had been bloodstains from the cafe, he must have been shot there and brought here. These guys didn’t even have any drinks from the cafe. Kim Jaehee spoke in a maddeningly leisurely voice.
“I wasn’t the one who pushed them in. Rico did it.”
I shook off Kim Jaehee and got into the pool. I thought that if I swam while holding one of the two men, I’d drown in the pool too, so I grabbed the rope that tied them both together and swam out. Then Kim Jaehee dragged that rope and pulled them out of the water. Only when the two men’s faces barely emerged from the water did their thrashing stop.
Both of them spat curses at Rico and us, but Kim Jaehee let go of the rope and said,
“My hand slipped.”
When their faces plunged into the water, I pulled on the rope. The two drenched members of the Infinite Church spat out the pool water they had swallowed and gasped for breath. Sin Haeryang came down from the second floor to the first in the elevator and said to us,
“I told you to behave for just three minutes.”